


nasty, brutish, and short

by asphaltworld



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Coming In Pants, M/M, New Year's Eve, Suicidal Thoughts, These Tags Are A Mess!, minor d/s vibes but nothing very official, murder but it isn't graphic, victor angsting, zsasz goes on a shopping spree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphaltworld/pseuds/asphaltworld
Summary: The day Zsasz gets out of Arkham, they put him out on the street with a bus pass, an empty wallet, and an ugly fucking sweatshirt. He meets Roman soon after.They end up spending New Year's Eve together.Title courtesy of Thomas Hobbes.
Relationships: Roman Sionis/Victor Zsasz
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	nasty, brutish, and short

The day Zsasz gets out of Arkham, they put him out on the street with a bus pass, an empty wallet, and an ugly fucking sweatshirt. He knows for a fact it’s not what he was wearing when they booked him. Maybe they had to throw those clothes out because of all the blood.

He doesn’t know what they _expect_ him to do with all their generosity, but he steals six different wallets on the bus back downtown, for a measly total of $247. 

His next stop is Lacey’s Department Store, where he used to buy all his clothes. Victor really feels like he deserves something nice after two years in a cramped cell without any sharp objects. It was _so_ goddamn boring in there.

The place is stuffed full of clothes, but they’re all for office drones who don’t care how they look. Victor wanders around until he finds it: a wall of fuzzy, velvety tracksuits in every color. It’s the kind of thing he can wear anywhere, and it looks fucking slick. Victor goes with gold, because someone once told him his skin looks good in yellow. He grins at his reflection in the mirror before he goes to pay. The outfit costs him a decent chunk of cash, but it’s worth it. 

He spends that first night squatting in an abandoned building, but it doesn’t take long for him to trade on his reputation and get a couple gigs. It’s enough to set him up in a residency hotel for a month. 

Victor Zsasz gets back to his exercise, bleaches the color out of his hair, invests in a big trench coat to wear around town. Most importantly, he gets back to his tallies. By the time they caught him, he was only up to 13 strokes across his skin. He can’t honestly believe they caught him so soon, but now he can make up for lost time.

He chooses ordinary people, out for a hot dog lunch or a walk around the lake. They’re the ones who deserve it, and he’s happy to give it to them: the kind of freedom no one has ever offered him.   
  


Victor’s wearing the mustard velour tracksuit when he passes a guy in a suit with a huge entourage on the street. He stops to watch, chewing on a donut. It sprinkles his chest with cinnamon sugar.

A thick-necked man in a baggy suit gestures at him and says, “Hey, don’t watch. Boss doesn’t like to be watched.”

Well, Victor doesn't like being told what to do, and he hates Gotham City hotshots. He keeps his eyes fixed right where they are, doesn't even spare the watchdog a wayward glance.

The man at the center of the crowd is wearing a loose blue suit, and he looks unsteady. He’s carrying a plastic bag straining under the weight of what looks like several takeout containers. There are two different men with their hands on his shoulders, and he keeps trying to shrug them off. 

“Hugo, who are you harassing over there?” he says in a commanding, obnoxious voice. It’s Victor’s least favorite sound. 

“Victor Zsasz,” Zsasz says. He wonders if the name will scare them off. 

“Whatever.” the guy says. He laughs a little to himself, wipes his mouth with a gloved hand. “You a threat, Victor?”

“I could be,” Victor says, too earnestly, with wide eyes, and he must look like the puppy dog people always peg him as, because the bodyguards all start to laugh. It’s a mistake, on their part, but Victor still feels the shame they want him to feel. 

“Hey, hey, don’t laugh at him,” the man says. “We’re all friends here.” The way he looks at Victor borders on a leer. He must have a thing for tough guys punching above their weight. Victor knows his weight class just fine, though. it’s everyone else who’s confused.

“Sure, Roman,” one of them says dutifully.

He stumbles forward, stretches a hand out but the guards hold him back before he can. That doesn’t faze him. 

Roman says, “This guy’s a lot of fun. Let's take him back to my club.” 

The goons look at each other, like, do we have a choice?

They enclose him in their circle with Roman, and that would be fine, but then they each place a hand on his shoulder. The weight and the heat of each hand feels disgusting.

Victor kills both of them before Roman even tries to get him to stop. It happens so fast, and Victor doesn’t try to savor it like he usually does when he’s killing for pleasure. They’re both down, bleeding out on their boring black suits. 

Roman leans down and grabs at a slit, gushing throat, seemingly on instinct, then looks down at his hand in disgust and flicks the blood off. His hand is still stained, of course. 

“That wasn’t very friendly, Victor Zsasz,” Roman says. He cocks his head. “Why did you do that? _How_ did you do that? Shit.” There’s color in his cheeks that wasn’t there before.

“That one wasn’t listening to you, anyway,” Victor says. The man looked like he didn’t even want to be there.

“Those guys are supposed to be the best. Clearly they aren’t. Are you? Are you the best?” Roman pulls at Zsasz’s sleeve with a bloody hand.

“Don’t fuck up my jacket,” he says, annoyed. This tracksuit _means_ something to him. And it looks good on him. 

“I can replace it,” Roman says, waving it away like Victor’s concerns are immaterial. A bold move, considering what he just witnessed. “Come on. You’re still coming, aren’t you?”

The remaining guards keep their distance from Victor, and no one tries to touch him again. 

  
  


The club is a thrumming, shiny mess filled with people. Definitely not Victor’s kind of place. He hasn’t been to a club like this in years. Roman is swaying drunkenly, leading him through the crowd like a pet while he talks to other, equally attractive people about shit Victor simply doesn’t care about. 

Everyone’s polite about Victor’s ruined outfit and they ignore the bloody handprint, which must not be too shocking in a place like this. He does notice some rough-looking characters around the outskirts, but Roman’s friends are all pretty people with smooth skin and expensive outfits. 

At any rate, Roman is generous with his drugs, and the drinks are on him, so Victor doesn’t mind hanging out. 

Roman is up and about past 4 in the morning without so much as a yawn, so Victor eventually has to tap out. He has to _work_ tomorrow. It’s an early job in the industrial district. He nods at Roman, makes a small gesture with his hand, and heads for the door. Roman stops him, though. 

“Hey, leave it behind,” Roman says. He tugs at the jacket zipper, watching intently as it inches down slowly, making Victor’s brain short-circuit. He’s just wearing a white undershirt beneath it. 

“What?”

His eyes flick back up to meet Victor’s. “Your jacket. I’ll see what I can do about it. Since I ruined it.” He doesn’t _look_ sorry, but he’s doing something about it. 

“Sure thing, _boss._ ” He means it sarcastically, but the thing is, Roman is used to people calling him that. It falls totally flat, because Victor may as well be one of the faceless, interchangeable men who works for him. 

The jacket is still warm when he hands it off to Roman. It’s a cold walk back home, but it barely even registers. He’s still thinking about the look on Roman’s face as he pulled his jacket off. 

Victor’s not sure how he gets his address, but Roman starts sending him _printed invitations_ to his club soon after that. It’s all so unnecessary. Victor looks out of place every single time, even after Roman threatens to start taking him on shopping trips. The first few times he actually shows up, the doormen give him shit. Victor tells them “I’m here to see the boss man,” and they actually bring Roman over to check. 

“Yeah, he’s with me,” he says, with an expansive sweep of his gloved hand. All around the club, there’s leather masks on display, elaborate studded and zippered things. Victor wonders if he ever puts any stuff like that to real use. In his own experience, loud rich men aren’t nearly as adventurous in bed as they lead you to believe. He tries to picture it, but keeps drawing a blank when he tries to picture Roman as either a dom or a sub. The guy’s totally needy, but pathologically bossy. It could go either way.  
  


Occasionally, Victor brings his own cocaine, and Roman’s just as enthusiastic about it as he is about his own stash. When Roman’s pupils are blown out, his hands stray a little more than usual. He loops an arm around Victor’s shoulders, strokes the sides of his face, runs a hand over his fuzzy shaved head. Victor doesn’t hate it. 

“Take one with me,” Roman insists tonight, pressing a pill to Victor’s lips. They’re in one of the darker booths back toward the bathrooms and the elevator. It’s kind of annoying. He keeps pressing, though, until Victor’s lips part and he can slide it onto his tongue. Only then is he satisfied, and he sits back in the booth with the contentment of the truly blitzed. 

Victor swallows, and hopes to join him soon.

Before it starts to come on, Roman puts his hand on Victor’s face and traces over the shapes his features make. He goes over each eyebrow, then the bridge of his nose, and his cheekbones. He stops at Victor’s lips. He touches the edges, but moves his hands away. Did he want to, though? 

It’s good that he doesn’t, because it might make Victor do something slutty. 

They end up on the roof, where Roman talks about his grand plans for the city. Their hands hang over the railing and they look out over Gotham. It feels so small and malleable below them. 

They don’t want him here, Roman says, his dad and the Wayne boy and the guys he went to prep school with. But Roman’s going to show them all. Zsasz wonders briefly, before the dazzle of streetlights and skyscrapers smooth his thoughts over, if Roman’s worth is all tied up with property in the city. Like his club. Maybe trust funds with stipulations so he can’t leave.

But soon he’s grinding his teeth and nodding along with Roman, his grand plan of strength and power and conquest. He can’t focus his eyes on any of the lights, and they blur out around him as Roman grips his hand. Victor squeezes back, and the leather squeaks under his touch.   
  


Roman doesn’t forget that Zsasz is dangerous, but he never seems to consider what that might mean for _him._

The two parade around his club together, sometimes even visit other clubs together, but they’re never quite touching in public. The most Roman will do during their first sweep around any club is a light touch to the small of his back. That’s before he gets fucked up.

Zsasz feels a little like he’s losing his mind, or his self-respect, something vitally important, because he’s letting this happen. Roman leads him around and constantly revels in the disgust, fear, horror that Victor provokes in people, but he never goes so far as to hire him for his services, or stake any actual claim over him. They’re friends who spend the entire night together and sometimes they pass out on Roman’s couch together, and that’s it. Fucking bizarre.

He can’t tell Roman any of this, though. That’s not how it works. 

No, Victor wants any scrap he can get from Roman, even if it’s never gonna satisfy him.

There are men at the club together, sometimes, and they don’t even try to hide it. They don’t quite hold hands, but they dance together and kiss and leave together. They look like they feel _safe_. Nobody loses their minds over it. Victor notices things like this. 

Maybe it’s just that he spends all his free time in a chaotic, slippery playground of a club with the kind of lighting that obliterates your circadian rhythms. Zsasz likes chaos, he likes danger and drugs and getting to intimidate new people all the time, so why doesn’t he like this?

He probably needs more tallies, more people to set free. Roman has been taking up too much of his time. 

It’s a crowded night at the Black Mask Club, and Roman’s in good spirits. All is well in the little world he controls, and he’s laughing, drinking, smiling at a group of other young, good-looking people. Victor is roughly the same age as them, but he looks so much older. He feels older, too. Suddenly he’s very aware of his rough skin and his voice and the ridiculous fucking jacket Roman bought for him to replace the one he ruined the night they met. He knows it’s what they would call _tacky_. 

Roman’s giggly tonight, and he takes Victor into the biggest bathroom stall at the end, the one designed for wheelchairs. The door creaks open and he drags Victor in behind him. 

Normally this would be fun, but in Victor’s strange mood the moment turns sour. Roman still hasn’t let go of his bruising grip on Victor’s wrist, but he probably hasn’t noticed that it’s so tight. He’s fiddling with his small plastic baggie, deciding whether to just take a bump or a line, and Victor’s suddenly sick of it all. He tries to tug his hand away, but Roman doesn’t let go. Instead, he holds even tighter and looks sidelong at Victor with the tiniest smug grin on his face. 

Normally, he would think it’s sexy. 

Normally he wants as much skin-to-skin contact with Roman as possible, give it all to him, sew them together. 

Maybe he wants something other than bathroom stalls and brief touches couched in violence. 

He’s pulling his fist back before he _really_ has time to think about it, to think about _why_ he’s doing this, in this tastefully lit, cleanest public bathroom he’s ever been inside. He doesn’t go for the knife just yet, but his hand is hovering over it. 

Roman’s quicker than he thought, though, maybe all the coke really _is_ good for him, and he uses the hand holding the baggie to shove Victor away, hard. There’s a small shower of white powder, like the world’s finest snow. 

“What the fuck!” Roman stands there, wide-eyed, for just a second. Eyes darting to where he knows Victor keeps his knife. Then he throws open the stall door, slipping on the tiled floor as he sprints out of the bathroom to find his bouncers. It’s very undignified. Zsasz doesn’t try to sneak out, because that’s not the kind of slime he is. 

When they arrive, one of them recognizes Zsasz, from that first meeting, and he looks grimly pleased. They’re not gentle with him, and his white shirt gets a black smear across it from the sidewalk where they tossed him out. 

Roman comes forth, of course, to spit at him, to yell, “Were you trying to fucking kill me?” Victor wants to laugh, because Roman _knows_ what Victor looks like when he’s trying to kill somebody. He always gets the job done. 

Victor has never seen him look angrier, and it suits him. Roman’s definitely yelling something about hospitality, about _his club,_ but it’s all just noise to Victor, by that point. 

He has to walk home, wet from the snowy concrete; none of Roman’s cars are there to take him home this time, obviously.   
  


It didn’t work out like he wanted it to. 

After he does it, he’s not sure what he wanted from the situation. Victor never fucking knows what he wants. 

Victor really thought it would make him feel better, but it turns out he doesn’t really like seeing Roman laid low. So, okay. Another thing he’s tried and doesn’t want to do ever again. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. He can totally move on from this. A new year is coming. 

  
  


Roman has the world at his fingertips. Victor did too, once. But Roman _wants_ it all, wants even more than he has. Victor doesn’t understand desire like that, or the form it takes. 

That kind of money weighs on you. _He_ handles the weight of it all with style. Victor handled it with neuroticism and a gambling addiction, until he unburdened himself of all his fucking money.

Now _these_ are thoughts to have alone in your room to the tune of six shots of vodka. Alone in your single rented room the night before the start of a new year. 

Victor thought he burned all the ordinariness out of himself when he made that first cut and liberated that first soul, but he’s sitting here drinking over a boy, like he’s back in high school. 

A while back, he stole something from Roman. They’re just a pair of sunglasses, nothing special. They’re sitting on his coffee table. The glasses are completely fucking boring when they’re away from Roman, of course, but they looked so good in his hands. Glittering, beautiful. Almost a part of him.

“We had a good run,” Victor says to himself. He should throw them away, but he still likes to look at them.  
  


Roman ends up coming to him.

He manifests in the form of a pounding at his door, a voice snarling, “ _Victor,”_ the obvious prelude to a rant. 

Victor figures it’s better to just open the door.

“What the fuck is going on,” Victor says, because he doesn’t know any better. What else could he possibly say? 

Roman shoves past Victor. It’s a brush of solid warm body buttoned into a sleek wool coat, and Victor's so grateful for the touch he lets him barge his way in. 

So now Roman’s inside. He’s unnaturally still. Too quiet. Staring out the window with his hands folded behind his back. He doesn’t even notice his own stolen sunglasses on the table. 

When his shoulders start to shake, Victor figures out what’s going on. He’s just not sure what to do about it.

He lets Roman cry quietly in the middle of his apartment.

Roman’s the first one to talk. 

“I goddamn hate philosophy. My dad gave me this big crate of _books_ he wants me to read. Like I don’t already have a shitton of _book assignments_ already, from my actual teachers _._ I only opened one of them and look what it fucking did to me. Hobbes, the fucking dreariest writer ever, but too bad for us, he was right. That’s life. It sucks and then you die.”

“I've already done the sucking part--” His head snaps up and looks at Victor with teary fury in his eyes. “Don’t fucking laugh at that. But dying. That’s the part. The part I haven’t done.”

“No one cares if I live or die,” he says. “You’re right. So do it, just fucking do it. It’d serve them right anyway. Just. Leave me in the hallway when you’re done, okay? I don’t want them to find me in here.” He slams down two quick shots of the stuff Victor had on the table, and he doesn’t even complain about the taste. 

Ah. Roman’s drunk too. Way drunker than Victor. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with him. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

“I’m not going to do that.” Victor lowers his voice, so maybe he’ll sound closer to soothing than threatening. 

Roman looks up at him, black tear tracks down his face. “Why not? That’s kind of fucking selfish of you, isn’t it? I thought you wanted this.”

“You need to go to bed. Don’t ask me for something I can't give you.”

"That's what I do, Mr. Zsasz. Get used to it.”

“I’ll only _get used to it_ if I don't kill you now.”

Roman groans. “I’m too fucking tired to argue with you, shit. Lemme get back to you’n the morning.” That private school diction only ever gets a little slurred, even when he’s shitfaced.

Victor gives him the bed, if only because he knows it’ll cut down on the bitching the next morning. Roman’s bitching is world-class.

He looks down at him, wondering what the fuck is going on here and why he’s even bothering with Roman. 

The next morning, Victor tries to keep himself busy by cleaning, of all things. He sweeps the kitchen floor, wipes down the surfaces in the living room, and tries to cook eggs. By noon he’s run out of things to do, but like hell is he leaving Roman alone in his apartment. 

He’s slumped on the couch sharpening knives when Roman strolls out entirely fucking naked, which is a welcome surprise. There’s a spring in his step. He’s facing the windows, though. The first thing Victor sees is a slash of sunlight across his back, and it almost glows.

Victor takes the chance to stare at his ass, pale white but pleasingly round. 

When he turns around, Victor sees that Roman’s face is still a bit of a mess-- slightly puffy, messy with makeup. Still handsome. Still something he wants to touch. He keeps his eyes above the waist as much as he can.

Victor can’t bring himself to do anything stupid like ask “how are you” so he just looks away. He wishes he had a TV to turn on, so he could pretend to bury himself in oblivion. 

Roman eventually sits down and Victor can unclench his fucking jaw. 

“So,” Roman asks, `”How did I end up here last night, again?"

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Victor wonders if _Roman_ is wondering if they fucked and that’s why he’s being so cheerful. It’s certainly suspicious. 

“You came in saying something about philosophy. School-type shit.” He plays it safe. 

Roman seems to have an idea of what that means. He gets a pained expression on his face, something way closer to shame than Victor has ever seen on him. 

“Jesus Christ,” he says. “Look, I didn’t _mean_ any of that. I’ll go get dressed.”

It’s a weird reaction. A disappointing one, too, because Victor was starting to think Roman was just going to lounge around naked all day. 

Roman slips back into his clothes that he really shouldn’t be wearing in a place like Victor’s apartment, and returns to sit on a folding chair somewhere in the “kitchen” which is about five feet away from Victor’s spot on the couch. He looks more like himself. It’s not just the clothes, it’s the closed expression on his face. 

“New Year’s Eve, huh? What the fuck. Where did the year go?” He pauses just long enough to sound casual when he adds, “Wanna get stoned?"

“You got weed?” Victor has never known Roman to be a weed kind of guy.

“Uh, no, I assumed you did,” Roman says impatiently. 

“I’m dry.” _Victor_ never smokes weed.

“Well, let’s fucking go get some, then?” Roman’s up and out of his chair. Something in his posture suggests he’s been waiting a long time already, even though it only takes Victor about ten seconds to get up. 

“I'm broke,” he says. 

Roman rolls his eyes and kind of sags his entire body to emphasize how annoying everything is. “I can finance it, okay? I need _not_ to stare at the walls entirely sober. How the fuck do you get through this every day...”

Roman’s connections are solid, but even he needs to go through a few calls before he can find a dealer on a holiday. Finally, they go to meet a guy in a parking structure. The structure is only a few blocks away, Victor points out to Roman smugly. His shitty neighborhood has its benefits. 

  
  


Half an hour later they’re warm in his apartment again. Roman’s coat is drying spread over the empty dining table. Smoke curls in front of Roman and it’s all very picturesque. Victor wonders why they’re still at his apartment instead of somewhere with an admiring audience for Roman to exploit, but he doesn’t bother to ask. 

They’re sprawled on the sagging couch, maybe too close together. Roman’s hair is dirty and falling out of its maximum-hold-gel stylings. Victor thinks he can still smell the remnants of the various gels and creams he must apply every day. His nose, and more crucially, his mouth, both drift down to Roman’s shoulder, exposed by the loose neck opening of his sweater. Roman takes that moment to shift around, and Victor’s face is suddenly mashed against his neck. It’s not quite a kiss, but his lips brush Roman’s skin anyway.

Roman stills for a moment, but then his hand rests at the back of Victor’s fuzzy head and holds it in place. He’s pretty firm about it. When Victor breathes in, it’s the scent of soap on skin and the tiniest hint of sweat.

“How long have you wanted to do that?” he asks. “Don’t lie about it. I see the way you look at me.” 

Victor feels he’s at a disadvantage here because his weed tolerance has gone down the tubes since he’s been in prison, and it wasn’t great to start with. It feels like he’s moving through water when he pulls out of Roman’s hold and gets a look at his face. 

He ends up blurting out, “A while,” which is thankfully nonspecific but is still more information than he wanted to share.

Roman smirks infuriatingly but doesn’t say anything else. They both stare out the window as the sun starts to set. Victor is starting to feel on edge when Roman finally says something.

“If you were ten years old with your family, what would you be doing right now?” He interrupts a train of thought Victor was having about some birds passing by, soaring over human-made structures. 

“Uh. Eating, probably. Soup, fish, cabbage. The table would be covered in like a hundred little pastries my aunts made.” He thinks. “I’d get my very own switch from a tree as a present each year, to scare me out of being bad. Guess how well that worked.” He smiles despite himself.

“ _Cabbage?_ How quaint,” Roman says. He doesn’t offer his own story right away. The sun sinks deeper and the sky turns orange and pink. 

“My parents always had these huge parties. The _best of Gotham society._ My mom would be shitfaced by noon. It took my dad a little longer, because he was too busy asking all his friends what their sons were up to so he could give me a list of all the shit I’m doing wrong. Pretty fucking boring,” he says. 

“Hell yeah. Fuck them.”

Roman just laughs.

“Hey, Victor. Come over here,” he says, patting his own lap. 

“Why?” Victor asks. 

“Because we’re bored, and it’s a _holiday_ , and I need your help to make one last bad decision this year.” 

“’m not bored,” Victor mutters, he was doing just fucking fine, but he shuffles over because he does want to. He has to admit it’s not an especially sexy move. But Roman’s warm, even though he’s wearing stupid thin black pants. His hands settle on Victor’s back the way they have a dozen times before. The gesture lets Victor think that this situation’s not so strange. 

“I want to see your fucking scars,” Roman says. 

And well, nobody has ever asked Victor for _that_ before, except when he was taken into custody. He’s just in a t-shirt, so it’s easy to pull off and show him the first ten scars, the ones on his torso. They’re still few enough that they stand out against his skin. Victor knows that someday, he’s going to covered in them, a living record of his work. 

He knows right away that it was right to share them with Roman, because he shows the appropriate respect when he sees them. It’s the sharp breath, wide eyes, his hand hovering over the skin without touching. Roman _understands_.

It gives Victor the chance to say, “You can touch them.” It feels really fucking good to get to give Roman permission for something, instead of the other way around. 

Roman’s hands are on him, tracing scars hungrily, scraping short, blunt fingernails over them. They’re not particularly sensitive, but Victor lets out a little animal noise anyway, because he _likes_ being scratched like that, and being touched by Roman. 

Roman doesn’t bother asking before he leans forward to put his mouth on Victor’s chest. He traces a line with his tongue up to a nipple, and bites down. 

Before, Victor wasn’t really sure how far they would take this-- how serious Roman was. The faint impression of his teeth on his breast makes things pretty clear, though. Victor rushes at him for a messy kiss, gets his tongue in Roman’s mouth and suddenly he’s so ready for it, for whatever Roman wants to throw at him. 

Roman’s eyes are fixed on Victor as he unbuttons his pants and shoves them down just enough to pull out his dick. He’s already hard, and Victor can hardly fucking believe this is happening. He gets a good look at the thick pink line of it, the shiny head, before Roman pulls him closer and bucks up, so he can rub himself against the muscle of Victor’s torso. 

Victor spits on his hand and spreads it over Roman’s dick, so it glides against him more smoothly. Roman groans and digs his nails into Victor’s back. 

Victor’s kind of wishing he could get his mouth on him, maybe nuzzle his face into Roman’s crotch, but it’s a different kind of excitement to feel him, hard and thrusting against his stomach. He pulls back just enough to see the glazed look in Roman’s eyes when they flutter open and presses an openmouthed kiss to his cheek.

Victor’s own dick is hard, trapped in his jeans, but it’s at the back of his mind. All he’s focused on is the rhythm of Roman writhing against him, that point of heat where his erection is kind of stabbing the most vulnerable part of his body. 

All of a sudden Roman’s shoving Victor off his lap, but it’s only so he can push him back against the couch and straddle him, tracing over scars with the tip of his dick. 

“Fuck,” Victor says, and Roman shoves him back again with so much force that the couch tips over and they’re falling backwards, so that he can crawl over Victor possessively and start to jack himself off. 

“I’m really fucking into you,” he pants out. It comes out sounding angry, which only makes Victor hotter for the whole situation. 

“So come on me,” Victor says. He slips a hand under Roman’s shirt, feels soft skin and lean muscle and hair. He grazes a nipple with his fingernail and Roman gasps out a broken sound. _Oh._ He wants to hear it again, so he presses down harder, then pinches. He watches those icy blue eyes squeeze shut and his face flush deeper. His hand travels down to the soft meat of his ass. Roman’s arms start to shake, so Victor grabs as viciously as he can until Roman’s mouth falls open and he’s spraying an arc of hot cum across Victor’s bare chest. 

He rolls off to the side, away from Victor, and smiles dazedly. 

Victor swipes his hand through the mess and brings it up to his mouth, to lick at it delicately. Roman makes an outraged noise, but he keeps watching. He goes to finally unbutton his pants, but Roman grabs his arm. 

“What?” Victor says sharply. He’s pretty ready to come, at this point. “It’s fucking _sore._ ” Sore from disuse, anyway.

But Roman grins at him, arrogant and in control again already. He gets between Victor’s knees and presses his palm down against his erection, hard. He starts to grind his hand against it, slowly but with a lot of fucking pressure. It’s very nearly uncomfortable, but the look on Roman’s face gets to him and he just moans passively instead of pushing him away.

“Well. What if I make you come like this? You seem like you’d like that shit,” he says. Victor bites his lip and nods. 

“Is that a yes, Victor?”

“Yeah,” he grunts. 

So Roman applies himself to his task, kind of halfway jerking Victor off through his jeans. 

“I hate that I’m enjoying this,” he says, but of course it comes out sounding desperate and Roman’s eyes light up. 

“I _thought_ you would be a good boy for me. And you are, squirming around like that, with cum on your mouth. You are so fucking eager. Why don’t you just _come_? Shoot off in your fucking pants for me, like you’ve never been laid before. I can tell that you want to.” 

He lowers himself and mouths at Victor’s dick through the denim.

It’s nothing like a real blowjob, but he can still feel the heat and wet from Roman’s mouth. It’s so easy to imagine the rest, so he bucks his hips up. Roman pulls back, of course, watching with this hungry look on his face as Victor grits his teeth and ruins his pants. There’s a lot of it, and it seeps through the fabric. He covers his face with one arm and exhales. There’s a quick kiss to his forehead, and then he’s alone on the ground with sticky pants.

  
  


Roman’s the first to pick himself up off the floor, and he settles onto the couch with as much grace as anyone ever could. 

He rolls another joint, a perfectly packed little tube of weed. He shares, once Victor feels like moving again. 

“Do you ever feel like we need to get control of this city?” Victor’s spewing stoned nonsense. “People are way too comfortable around here. This isn’t fucking Newark. Gotham isn’t a place for fucking accountants to settle down. But they still come here!” 

“Oh, absolutely. I’d love to get my hand on that Batman motherfucker, you know? He acts like he thinks he owns this place. And listen, I _know_ all the people who own the buildings in this town. It’s a short list. Families who have lived here for _decades,_ and I’m betting he’s not on it.”

Victor rests his head on folded arms. “Roman, you could totally do that.”

“Do what? Run around in a mask like those fucking freaks?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“And you’ll be my loyal guard dog?

“If that’s what it takes.” 

Roman laughs, and so does Victor. 

“I’d rather focus on the club and like, my stalled out master’s degree, Victor. But shit, if I ever do want to play cops and robbers, you’ll be my right hand man.” He _giggles_ , and it’s the most beautiful sound Victor has ever heard. He wants to follow Roman as far as he can. 

**Author's Note:**

> when i was researching the first part of this i learned that new jersey is one of the few states doesn't provide people with any gate money at all when they get out of prison... 
> 
> i've wanted to use this title since my first fic for this pair, but couldn't think of a reason to until now. in case it's not as obvious as i think it is, the title's supposed to describe victor lol!  
> 
> 
> happy end of the fucking year! i'll take any excuse to open a bottle of champagne at this point. thanks for reading~~


End file.
